Bill Smith Quartet - Folk Jazz (1961)

A record that could only have been made in the late '50s, 1959's Folk Jazz is a meeting of the two great collegiate crazes of the period, post-bebop modern jazz and traditional folk music. Clarinetist Bill Smith and a low-key piano-less trio ? Jim Hall on guitar, Monty Budwig on bass and the great Shelly Manne on drums ? take 10 songs from the folk tradition, strip them down to the bare essentials of melody and chord progressions and turn them into a Kind of Blue-like experiment in cool-toned modal jazz. Familiar standards like "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair" (which opens with an extended unaccompanied solo by Smith that's a marvel of economy) are presented in entirely new and fresh settings. Perhaps the best of the lot is an extended meditation on the spiritual "Go Down Moses" that turns the song from a gospel shout to an intimate whisper. The 2003 CD reissue adds two tracks, alternate takes of "Reuben, Reuben" and "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen."
By Stewart Mason
http://www.allmusic.com/album/folk-jazz-mw0000027934

Cal Tjader & Eddie Palmieri - Bamboleate (1967)

The second album pairing Palmieri and Tjader, Bamboleate moves beyond El Sonido Nuevo into the respective territories of each artist. "Bamboleate" is the Latin cooker ones expects from Palmieri but did not find on the more subdued El Sonido Nuevo. "Semejanza" is an equally affecting jazz lilt led by Tjader. Framed by a melody that could have come straight off the Vince Guaraldi Trio's Charlie Brown Christmas album, it has an equally indelible, locomotive rhythm. Tjader's samba, "Samba De Los Suenho," is a welcome departure from the relative rigidity of El Sonido Nuevo. Also vital are the vocal tracks (Palmieri's); the blatant channel-switching in "Guajira Candela" is an abuse of stereo separation, however. (Use a second voice or instrument for that.) "Pancho's Seis Por Ocho" is typical of the deep, mid-tempo, Afro rhythm of Bamboleate and El Sonido Nuevo. Trombonist Mark Weinstein contributes the closing "Ven Y Recibelo (Come an' Get It)," a mod/soul cooker on a par with the best of Verve all-stars Tjader, Ogerman, Winding, and Schifrin. Finally, the album was reissued in 1977 as Tico LPS-88806 and distributed by Fania; the reissue at least features illustrations of Tjader and Palmieri by Jose Vargas.

Review - Tony Wilds

http://www.allmusic.com/album/bambol%C3%A9ate-mw0000273328